I have always sucked at networking. Through college and high school, I never wanted to go to networking events, other than for the food. I was shy and could not even imagine going up to someone and talking to them, and about what?! It scares me even today, I think I have found a way around this hiccup, however.
The modern world has technology that betrays our social lives every day. Since we are a generation who prefers to text and email more often than not, is it a surprise that we have learned to network the same way!
Recently I have become much more social on Instagram and Facebook.
Instagram
While there may not get groups and discussion pages like on Facebook the networking one on one is a huge market!
I follow a lot of amazing accounts and am inspired on the daily just thumbing through my feed. What I have learned is that communication is a huge tool, not only for an interactive audience but also through private messages. Have you ever gotten someone who genuinely loved your page enough to send you a private message just saying “hey girl love what you are doing!” I don’t know about you but I feel so flattered when I receive messages like this! Now imagine you get to be the little bug who puts that smile on someone else’s face. For accounts that I want to either know more about or just get to know the human behind the gram, I message and just send a little love and finish with a question. It’s a call to action for the user to say something back, hopefully rather than just thank you.
Of course, some messages will go unanswered but hey that’s life, at least you tried. Building your boss babe network is not built in a day. Talking to a woman in your area about what they do and how they do it has many benefits. You are learning tips and tricks to the trade, a contact in an area you may not be familiar with and potentially a collaborative teammate for future projects!
Just like dating on an app, after talking for a while you should meet! Grab a coffee, go to another networking event together, however you want to go about it.
Facebook has really become an incredible tool for bringing people together. Here in the Richmond area, there are countless groups you can get involved in; business related, socially, wedding planning and wedding selling. Most of these groups are private and you must be accepted in by the administrator, which is not a hard process, given you are there for the right reasons. Some of my favorites are the “Goal Diggers” “ Richmond wedding buy and sell” and “RVA Boss Babes”. Once inside the group introduce yourself! Say hello to the other members and maybe drop your Instagram handle? Giving people something to look at and explore further is a great way to not just get swiped over. Add a picture, relevant or not to your post, it will stop people to look at it much faster than just a paragraph of text. Once you’ve made your introductions, be interactive on the page, look for extensions of the page and certain topics. I found my 9 to 5 job on a page like this; became friends with a girl I had never met and one day she posted her company was hiring and boom, the rest Is history.
A long rant about two fairly obvious sites, sometimes we fail to see what is right there. Here is to communication being upped a notch here in 2019!
-ML
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